Comic Book Women: Characters, Creators, and Culture in the Golden Age

See Chapter 8, on romance comics (pages 225-249): https://doi.org/10.7560/324110-010

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While several nonfiction series oriented toward Black readers arose in the late 1940s, such as Negro Heroes from Parents Magazine Industries and books about sports legends Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson from Fawcett Publications, the arrival of Fawcett’s Negro Romance in 1950 marked the start of genre-oriented comics from a major publisher aimed at a non-white audience.
The comics industry largely avoided titles for Black readers in this era because most publishers feared the economic risks involved (be it in targeting the new, narrower demographic of Black customers or in facing backlash from white readers, distributors, or retailers). Given how the historical experiences of Black women were shaped by institutional structures of dominance, the gatekeepers who control how media industries disseminate content have long offered up content that abuses and effaces them. In its own small way, Negro Romance sought to counter this erasure, but it ultimately lasted for only three issues. (232)

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Much like Negro Romance addressed the systemic oppression of Black Americans using codified language, the romance genre sometimes addressed alternative expressions of sexuality and gender. Just as Black readers could decode a series like Negro Romance differently than white readers, queer theory allows for alternative readings of how romance comics encoded sexuality. While the Comics Code prevented publishers from discussing homosexuality directly, some creators got around the restriction with varying degrees of subtlety in their romance series. Several tales about men who are controlled by their mothers question the masculinity of their characters. (243)

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The romance genre was one of the few genres that offered non-male creators a regular voice. While traditional nuclear family values dominated their stories, romance titles occasionally showed off the genre’s potential to offer challenging representations of racial and sexual identity. More often than not, however, alternatives to the white, heterosexual, middle-class lifestyle presented in these publications appeared as problems to be solved. Instead of looking at alternative expressions of gender and romance as viable pathways through life, the romance genre made cautionary tales of them. This is, in large part, due to the restrictive nature of Comics Code Authority. The CCA hindered the ability for publishers to authentically respond to the massive social, cultural, and political shifts of the 1960s. (248-249)